The Procrastinator's Goat Shed

 I've mentioned that we have a doe due to kid this Friday. Currently she shares a shelter and pasture with all of our other goats- including the buck. We had planned to get another shelter up and another yard fenced well before now, but when you have five kids- one of whom is just over 1 yr old, and a husband that works 6 days a week, sometimes things don't get done. There is only so much you can do with a baby on your hip or during one hour of daylight in the evenings and 1 full day a week. 

So now the problem is that she needs to be separated from the boys. NOW. We didn't have time to make the shelter we had planned to make, and upon further discussion we realized we didn't really want a ton of small shelters around the pasture, but would rather save up time and resources to build the big barn. 

So we came up with a quick, low cost shelter that should do the job of keeping everyone safe and dry, but easily taken down when we no longer need it. 

You will need pallets (9), 6 ft. t-posts (9), 3 cattle panels, fencing staples, screws/bolts and a large tarp. 

We used the t-posts, driven down so that they were about 4 ft tall, to secure walls to the ground.

Then just simply placed the pallets over top of them. Then attached the pallets together using lag bolts.

Once one wall was complete, we stapled one side of a cattle panel on to the pallets.  This way we could better see where to place the 2nd wall.

Then we built the 2nd wall, and stapled the cattle panel to it as well.

We used part of the old barn wood, cut into 4 ft pieces, to side the shelter. 

We stapled the 2nd cattle panel at the other end. And wired the 3rd in the center to bring them all to the same level. There should be at least 6 inches overlapping on the panels. 

 Here is what it looked like when it was done, except for the tarp:

 Then we topped with a tarp. We got a 16' x 24' tarp. The 16 ft was a good width, but it was a bit longer than we needed. Which is okay if we need to make it longer in the future.

Not completely done, but almost. Just needs the tarp secured a bit more, a few more siding boards cut, straw on the ground and maybe a stall added for the babies. 

But that is tomorrow's work for the boys and me.